haha oh man. Why do I keep writing Perdition drabbles? Ah well…

prompt:  FAMILY
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline:  Paved With Good Intentions
characters:  Sam/Jess, Gabriel
words: 654
summary: (family is more than blood)

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Sam and Jessica have only been ‘officially’ dating for about a month when Jessica had to break their plans for the evening. She looks annoyed and frustated, but it melts into a weak smile when he asks her why.

“A… cousin of mine is in town. He wants to play catch up.”

“Cousin?” the hesitation might have been slight, but it was obvious to someone who has spent so much time trying to weasel information on things that go bump in the night out of reluctant witnesses. There’s something more there, something that she doesn’t want to talk about, and for a moment his instincts scream at him to dig and pick at it, to find out what it is. Then her hand settles lightly on his shoulder and he reminds himself that he’s a normal guy now. 

He doesn’t have to dig or snoop for clues, especially not into his girlfriend’s life. There’s nothing supernatural or freaky about her, and he does his best to keep it all away from her. If she doesn’t like her cousin, it’s more than likely for some mundane reason.

“Ray is…” she huffs out a laugh that sounds more pained than amused at the thought of her cousin. “Well, he thinks he’s funny. He plays all of these nasty little jokes and pranks and people tend to get hurt in the aftermath. It’s just… I don’t want to throw you to the dogs without a three day briefing, at the least.”

Sam has to laugh at that. “No one is that bad, Jess.”

“Ray is.” She’s being unusually firm about this as her gaze moves to stare over his shoulder. Sam starts to turn to see what it is that she’s looking at, but her nails dig into his arm and he stops. He’s already turned enough that he can see someone out of the corner of his eye, standing maybe twenty feet away.

Jessica sighs and lets go of his arm. Sam takes this as permission to finish turning and take a good look at the man; he places his age around the mid-thirties, and it’s obvious even at a distance that he’s quite a bit shorter than either Jess or himself. His face is curiously blank of expression, though it’s fairly obvious to Sam that they’re being studied in return.

“That would be Ray,” Jess admits with a wry twist of her lips. “I should go distract him from whatever trick he’s plotting out right now. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” he can’t say no to her smile, even if her cousin has completely ruined their plans for the evening. Just because his relationship with his family has gone down the drain doesn’t mean that he’ll demand that Jessica breaks off her familial connections. That’s not his place to decide.

As Jessica pulls the shorter man into a hug, Sam doesn’t bother to deny the sharp pang of jealousy or the wish that things were better with Dean. It’s been over a year, but he’s still angry and bitter about Dad’s reaction to his decision; he doesn’t really want to try and fix things with him. Fixing things with Dean would mean calling his brother, and the last time they’d talked it had only driven home just how much he didn’t fit into the Winchester mold.

All he had wanted to so was celebrate his grades (top of the class! Can you believe that?) but he hadn’t even been able to get the news out before Dean had asked if he’d come to his senses yet. If he was going to finally come home and leave ‘all that junk’ behind. The call had ended in a shouting match and Sam had absolutely zero desire for a repeat performance.

He didn’t need family that wouldn’t support him; not when he had Jess and Brady and the rest of his friends. So he boxed away his jealousy and started back to his room.

He had reservations to reschedule.